Volume 7: 3D Rendering for Packaging and Advertising

Virtual Marketing

You need a product shot of your company’s latest sports drink for an upcoming national advertising campaign. Unfortunately, the product is still being manufactured and the packaging isn’t printed, yet. Your largest retail channel partner needs to see how your new sports drink, in all twelve flavors, is going to look on their store shelves, before they’ll place their order. Your web team needs a ten second animation of the drink product, snowboarding alongside a big sports celebrity at the Winter Olympics. Did you say snowboarding?

The solution is 3D rendering. Widely used by product manufacturers to develop everything from automobiles to consumer electronics, household and food goods, 3D rendering has greatly reduced product development timelines and budgets. 3D rendering enables designers to explore multiple design options, quicker and more accurately, without the expense and time of physical product mock-ups.

So how does 3D rendering help market your sports drink? Photo-realistic renderings of products and product packaging enables manufacturers to market their products through print, broadcast, and Internet media, helping build consumer interest while the products are being manufactured.

3D rendering also enables the creation of ‘virtual’ point-of-purchase displays and photographic planograms. Merchandisers can visualize exactly how the product will look in the package, on the shelf, and in the store, maximizing product placement prior to stocking.

What is 3D Rendering?

3D rendering is the process of creating a computer-generated, three dimensional photo-realistic model of a physical object. Normally, this is done using any number of 3D rendering software applications designed specifically for this task. The process requires several distinct steps - modeling, texture-mapping, lighting, scene layout, and rendering.

Modeling creates a wireframe model of the physical object by plotting a series of three dimensional data points. The term ‘wireframe’ comes from the look of the model, which consists of a series of thin wire-like lines, forming small polygons and creating the outline of the object. Once created, wireframe models can be manipulated to their change shape, size, proportions, and other details.

Texture-mapping wraps texture around the surface of the wireframe model to simulate material the object is made of (wood, plastic, glass, or metal) and its finish (reflective, opaque, or transparent). Textures can be scanned into the computer and imported into the 3D rendering software, or created artificially using programs such as Adobe Photoshop.

Texture-mapping also includes the application of graphics to the model (for example, the label on the sports drink). Electronic mechanicals of the graphics are imported from other software applications such as Adobe Illustrator and applied to the product model over the surface texture.

Lighting simulates illumination, shading, translucency, reflection, refraction, and/or shadows to make the model appear photo-realistic. Almost any type of lighting situation can be simulated with current 3D rendering software. Scene layout positions the object in relationship to the point-of-view, similar to composing a photograph. The angle-of-view, distance of the object to the point-of-view, and simulations such as perspective distortion and focal distance can be controlled by the software.

Rendering is the final step in this process, which all the effects are calculated by the software to create a final representation of the object. The image can be rendered in low resolution for web, high resolution for print, or as a series of frames to create an animated sequence of the object.

Sport Drink Example

To better understand 3D rendering’s benefits let’s examine the sports drink example from the beginning of this article. An artist would start by using a 3D rendering software application to create wireframe models of the bottle and bottle cap. The artist often begins by importing a CAD file with the basic product dimensions into the 3D rendering software.

Once the wireframe is complete, the artist texture-maps a simulated plastic surface around the bottle and bottle cap. The drink bottle in this example is made from a clear transparent plastic, while the cap is made of an opaque colorized plastic. The artist can even simulate liquid in the bottle. Advanced 3D rendering software is able to simulate the physics of complex objects as a volume of liquid or cloud of gas.

After completing the basic plastic bottle, cap, and liquid contents, the artist wraps the label graphics around the bottle. Lighting, shading, reflections, refractions, and shadows are then added, completing the bottle’s photo-realistic appearance. Finally, the artist composes the scene and lets the software crunch the data to render a final image.

3D rendering also provides residual value. Once a wireframe model is created, it can be easily modified to create infinite variations of the object. Any variable can be altered - color, texture, size, lighting, and scene layout without recreating the underling wireframe object. 3D rendering eliminates costly photo re-shoots and image manipulation to change the original image of the product. Multiple objects can be rendered together or combined with other objects and backgrounds, to create complex scenes.

Again, using the sports drink example, if there are other flavors that need a product shot, the artist can create them using the software to change the color of the drink liquid and bottle cap, and to wrap each different flavor’s label around the bottle. Let’s say the marketing team decides the plastic bottles need a pebbled, easy-to-grip finish for an athlete’s sweaty hands. The artist creates a new bump map of a pebbled plastic finish and re-applies it to the wireframe surface of the bottle. What, the designer changed the label for the third time? Imagine that. Just import and wrap the revised graphics to the surface of the bottle then re-render the image.

Blurring Reality

Like photo-manipulation, 3D rendering is blurring the line between reality and computer-generated imagery. Often, 3D rendered objects are combined into existing photography and video, creating amazingly realistic results. 3D rendering software allows the artist to replicate lighting, position, scale, and movement to exactly match the scene into which the model is being added. It’s no longer even necessary to have the actual product available for the photoshoot or video production; it can be added afterwards. -gs